20 years of competition: part one

It’s 20 years this week since Optus was granted its licence — on Twisted Wire we look back at the early days.

On 19 November 1991 Optus was awarded a carrier licence, launching a new fixed line and mobile competitor to Telecom — it was long overdue. These were the days when a call to the UK cost $1.40 per minute, the equivalent of $2.30 in today’s money.

Talking at a CEDA (the Committee for Economic Development of Australia) lunch last week, Optus CEO Paul O Sullivan said it’s now 20 years “since the party started”. We hear some of his talk in this episode of Twisted Wire.

John Filmer, a senior executive of Optus for 10 years, says the story really started when the government established Aussat. Taking on the fledgling operation and its $800 million debt was part of the condition of the Optus licence.

But the new carrier was to lose even more on its failed OptusVision experiment. The roll-out of a hybrid-fibre coaxial network, replicated by Telstra, demonstrated the importance of regulation in an industry dominated by a cash-rich incumbent. Andrew Sheridan, Optus general manager interconnect and economic regulation, discusses the role legislation and regulation played in the history of the company.

Recent research by The Australia Institute shows that you have less control over your spending habits than you’d like to think.

In a joint report with the Citi Banking Group they defined 28 percent of Australians as being overconfident â€”– people who say they make good financial decisions, but whose behaviour suggests otherwise. Perhaps worse, 41 percent are oblivious, unaware that they could get a better deal if they shopped around.

This is all great news for marketers of course, because it shows people are highly susceptible to the hype more than to their own logical reasoning. And banks and phone companies do their best, of course, to ensure that its way too hard to work out whether we’re getting a good deal.

Although this news will seem obvious to people in advertising, economists tend to theorise that people behave rationally. It demonstrates the importance of considering the behavioural aspects of economics, based on what people actually do.

POSTS BY MONTH

ABOUT PHIL

Phil Dobbie is a broadcaster and writer, with a wealth of business experience behind him too. He was a partner in an ad agency, he's been the marketing head at various technology companies and ran the Australian operation of the British Tourist Authority.

But his real love is the creation of content - as a journalist for ZDNet and others. He likes to spend time behind the microphone, creating radio shows and podcasts - he's done thousands of them, for CBS, National Australia Bank, BBC and CommsDay.

He's available to present radio shows and produce podcasts. Or any other exciting projects that come along.